This release could occur, for example, by way of regression and the "re-cathecting" of former positions or fixations,[9] or the autoerotic enjoyment (in phantasy) of former sexual objects: "object-cathexes".
Like a steam engine, the libido's cathexis then builds up until it finds alternative outlets, which can lead to sublimation, reaction formation, or the construction of (sometimes disabling) symptoms.
[12] In describing the withdrawal of cathexes which accompanied the mourning process, Freud provided his major contribution to the foundation of object relations theory.
[13] Freud saw thinking as an experimental process involving minimal amounts of cathexis, "in the same way as a general shifts small figures about on a map".
[16] Critics charge that the term provides a potentially misleading neurophysiological analogy, which might be applicable to the cathexis of ideas but certainly not of objects.